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| Image from Mathew Henry on UnSplash |
When I first began to leave the dark lonely confines of my gender closet, in a small amount of time I learned the difficult way the amount of work it would take to bring my presentation standards up to a new level.
In other words, I needed to grow out of my teen dressing ideas and proceed on with my life as a novice transvestite or cross dresser. At the same time I found myself in a position to actually present well enough in the public's eye to get by. Believe me, there was much more error than trial when I first started my journey to being a transgender woman.
During that time also, I was receiving strong messages from my inner male to stay in the lane I was born into. Why give up all the work I had put into being a success in a life I struggled to accept for a frivolous pursuit such as wanting to be feminine. The problem was the entire process wasn't frivolous at all and I discovered later I was dead serious when I veered out of my gender lane. When I tried to change lanes, the whole process was at once terrifying but at the same time so satisfying as I was driving to a new destination and leaving the old one in my rear view mirror.
Once I began to arrive more and more in my exciting new world, the more my old male self began to fight the move. Mainly because I had so much to give up, such as family, friends and employment. The pressure was on and increased to an unbearable point in my life. When it did, I began to attempt more self harm to myself in a number of different ways. I began to leave the house cross dressed during the day in a medium sized town I was relatively well known in. I convinced myself that no one would recognize the feminine version of my male self. Plus, the going out went against every agreement my second wife and I had ever put together. She wasn't bothered so much by my cross dressing but was really paranoid about anyone seeing and recognizing me.
It turned out the going out was the least of my problems when it came to the life's pressures I was trying to deal with. Every time I was discovered going out by my wife there were tremendous resulting fights. After one in particular I tried taking my own life with a mixture of anti-depression meds and alcohol. Bottom line was I felt so bad, I just wanted my life to end. Luckily, I was not successful and my life did turn around for the best when I was able to change lanes and live my dream as a fulltime transgender woman.
Staying in my own lane turned out to be impossible for me. Life finally showed me when I pulled out to pass, it worked. When I pulled back into my new lane, I never wanted to go back.
